Shaz by the Sea

I know I just blogged the other day but this Blue Apron meal the other night was ah-mazing; I felt that it needed a blog post designated for itself.  I don't typically make steak very often at home, so this was a treat. It was called "Grains of Paradise Steak with Eggplant Couscous" or something along those lines. I had never heard of several of the ingredients, but basically, I encrusted the steaks with something that looked like black peppercorns ("grains of paradise") and salt and pepper. I tossed those in the saute pan with olive oil - just a few minutes on each side. Then the side consisted of a diced eggplant, mint, preserved lemon, toasted almonds, scallions, garlic and currants. It was a real unique, delicious dish.  And we paired it with one of our favorite bench bends from William Hill in Napa, California. We purchased this bottle at William Hill when we went to the winery with our good friends John and Erin who live in LA.

A few weeks back, Jim and I were talking about how we should tour the US Capitol and the White House since we are back in DC. I didn't know how to go about doing that - but apparently all you need to do is send a letter to your Congressman/woman with your personal information. Sure enough, we received an email back with a date to go visit the Capitol - it was today, October 25, 2014. We went into the city around 9:30 this morning and our tour started around 10:30. We parked without a problem and ventured over to the Capitol Building.  Typically, the building looks like this: But it is currently under repair/renovation/construction, so it looks like this: We walked into the Visitor's Center and breezed through security without a problem. It was very similar to TSA security, so I was nervous about the boys' formula and all their crap. I was pleasantly surprised with how easy it was and how excited the security personnel were to see Conor and Caden. Everyo

Last year at this time, I was pregnant with A and B...and I am not sure anyone knew [for certain] except my sister. It was such an exciting and fun time. I wrote one of my first blog posts " bringing fall to LA " about a bunch of different squash recipes - one of my favorites being spaghetti squash and veggies. Now that we have fast-forwarded to fall 2014 and we are on the east coast, the boys have experienced fall in New England. Quite frankly, there is nothing like it. The foliage is gorgeous, the weather is crisp and the "extras" that come with fall are irreplaceable (scarves, boots, comfy clothes, yoga pants, PSLs, fires, etc). So to recap, Jimmy and I drove the boys up to Saratoga, NY for a Phelan wedding at the end of September. We explored the town, had some lunch and Jim went to the wedding. The following day, we went to the post-wedding festivities which was a gorgeous BBQ lunch by the lake. We were able to introduce the boys to some family and then